


you're the crutch that keeps me standing

by diets0dasociety



Series: saudade [1]
Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Depression, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mali is only mentioned, Pansexual Michael, Straight Calum, Vomiting, basically this is really sad, loooooots of, mentions of drugs but not really, who the fuck knows ashton's sexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 10:19:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6002206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diets0dasociety/pseuds/diets0dasociety
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a certain comfort in the cold of waking up alone, Michael had learnt. A particular warmth in the dip of the bed that told him that his undignified conquest from the night before had come to their senses and disappeared before the dark haired boy beside them could notice. A familiar sense of safety in the empty bedside table – no number, awkward note or painkillers. Michael had found home in his hungover state of “lost.” And he liked it that way. </p><p> </p><p>or, Michael hasn't been okay for six months.</p><p> </p><p>1/3 of the Saudade series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're the crutch that keeps me standing

**Author's Note:**

> hi so this is my first complete oneshot/fic and first post on here in general! I hope it's okay, not very edited and only I've read it so it could be pure shit but just roll with it I guess. 
> 
> title is taken from Gone by Boston Manor, and this fic is heavily inspired by it I guess (meaning I haven't stopped listening to this fucking song for weeks and I came up with the idea whilst listening).

There was a certain comfort in the cold of waking up alone, Michael had learnt. A particular warmth in the dip of the bed that told him that his undignified conquest from the night before had come to their senses and disappeared before the dark haired boy beside them could notice. A familiar sense of safety in the empty bedside table – no number, awkward note or painkillers. Michael had found home in his hungover state of “lost.” And he liked it that way.

 

That’s not to say that had always been the case; up until six months ago, his home was waking up in the soft arms of an enigmatic masterpiece that drooled on his chest and melted his heart.

 

_“Morning, sleepyhead.”_

_“How many times are you gonna say that to me?”_

_“Every morning I wake up before you.”_

_“Arsehole.”_

But life had a funny way of changing things, and Michael had a funny way of not being able to deal with the change – and so he woke up alone.

He stretched alone.

He showered alone.

He made two plates of banana pancakes and two mugs of just-too-sweet coffee alone.

He ate his plate on his two-seated sofa, watching the shitty daytime TV that came with his 2pm breakfast time, alone.

 

_“We’ve got to start waking up earlier. I don’t think I can handle one more fucking episode of Come Dine With Me.”_

_“Well whose fault is that you fucking sleepy lump of shit?”_

_“I’m not the one who kept the lights on to play Mario Kart until 2am.”_

_“Yeah, but you’re the one who can’t deal with anything less than ten hours sleep.”_

_“Like you don’t love cuddling me for ten hours.”_

_“I don’t love being drooled on for ten hours.”_

_“Arsehole.”_

He’d seen this episode of Come Dine With Me before. The creepy maths teacher won, even though his crème brulee looked like shit. Michael had baked a better crème brulee that night, and the sweet-toothed connoisseur of all things food who’d watched him make it said it was the best thing he’d ever tasted. Michael wondered if that had changed by now. Michael wondered if a lot of things had changed, like he promised they never would. But promises were made to be broken and empty thoughts were a waste of time.

 

As routine, he left the apartment at exactly 3pm. The door clunked shut with a little creak, the way it always had done, and the smell of banana pancakes that had wafted into the hallway faded away by the time he reached the steps. He took the stairway two at a time, sliding his hand down the cool black bannister all the way to the third floor. He moved to the left then, avoiding the splashes of purple paint that coated the short flight of stairs.

 

_“Are you sure she’ll like this?”_

_“Look, purple’s her favourite colour and she always complains about the steps being too boring. What’s not to love?”_

_“What if her mum gets mad though?”_

_“You panic too much, babe. It’s just one bannister, not like we’re painting all the fucking stai… Oh.”_

_“Michael, don’t tell me you just dropped the paint.”_

_“I think we should go.”_

The light in the lobby was always just slightly too bright for the slightly too permanent hangover that trapped Michael’s nerves. The inquisitive stares and judgmental scoffs from neighbours Michael had long since forgotten the names of went unnoticed; another regularity that no longer held significance. He stumbled towards the front desk, avoiding the cracked black tiles beneath his feet. It was an irreversible habit of his to stick to the white tiles, too adjusted to the embarrassed whispers of _“I always feel like I’m going to fall through them”_ that would creep into his ears every afternoon, hot breathy giggles hitting his neck as two pairs of feet would jump from white space to white space. Michael rubbed his neck, almost as an instinct, when stepping over a barely noticeable stain of red; a result of a drunken venture into the lobby one night six months ago, when those words still charged his blood and sobs still ripped through his throat too frequent for sleep to take over.

 

In his state of lost, Michael had found but one anchor to his old happiness that didn’t reignite the burning ache in his chest. Mr Gustave was frightfully old and even more frightfully aggressive. The front desk was his territory and those brave enough to stay longer than the short seconds to exchange keys and cards were more often than not swept away with a wave of grumpy retorts and dismissive hand signals.

 

Michael was Mr Gustave’s exception, for some reason that remained unknown to Michael. The two greeted one another with the routine grunt before two pairs of keys were slid from shaking pale hands, stained with blood, absinthe and pancake batter, and the customary snapback and sunglasses combination was placed on the desk. The two said goodbye with another grunt, and Michael meandered out of the lobby.

 

_“It looks better backwards.”_

_“No it fucking doesn’t, I look like a chav.”_

_“An adorable chav.”_

_“Babe, chavs aren’t adorable.”_

_“Oh whatever, just put it on backwards.”_

Michael left the building, red-rimmed eyes hidden behind dark shades and still-damp hair hidden under tattered snapback – worn backwards, as always.

 

The road ahead was drowning under the puddles from last night’s rain, and Michael’s socks were sodden by the time he’d reached the end of the street. Two lefts, a right past the piercing place, down the alley by Joe’s Garage and across the beck; Michael knew the roads like the veins in his hand, sharp and pulsing and too alive for his own good. His destination was the same every day, the kick-start to his downward spiral of consciousness that began at exactly 4pm Monday through Sunday, rain or shine.

 

Ashton Irwin smiled when Michael stumbled through his door, uttering a quiet hello that wasn’t acknowledged, as always. The familiar creak of the dark haired body hitting the threadbare sofa opposite Ashton signaled the beginning of a routine that had been in place for just short of six months.

 

Michael passes Ashton $20.

“Have you heard anything?”

Ashton counts the $20.

“No.”

Ashton reaches under the sofa.

“What about Jack?”

Michael reaches under the sofa.

“No.”

Ashton puts the money in a worn black wallet.

“Ben?”

Michael grasps the neck of the vodka beneath his feet.

“Are you drunk right now, Michael?”

Ashton watches Michael swig from the bottle with pain in his eyes.

“I wish.”

Michael takes the paracetamol from the table beside him.

“Ben’s still dead.”

Ashton turns away as Michael takes just-too-many tablets.

“And he’s still gone?”

Michael pauses after he speaks, voice quiet and bottle resting against his lips.

“Yeah, Mike. He’s still gone.”

Ashton stands and opens the door.

“Okay. See you tomorrow, Ashton.”

Michael leaves, throwing the now empty bottle of vodka in the bin as he passes. The red in his eyes is darker and the sadness in Ashton’s is greater than ever.

 

_“You’re really lucky to have Ash, y’know.”_

_“Yeah, I know.”_

_“No I don’t think you do, Mikey. He loves you so much, I’m pretty sure he’d do anything for you.”_

_“What, like take a bullet?”_

_“No – stop laughing at me I’m serious – I think he’d actually fire the bullet if you asked.”_

_“Are you saying my best friend wants to kill me?”_

_“No, I’m saying he would if you asked. That’s special, Michael.”_

_“Would you kill me if I wanted you to?”_

_“No. Never.”_

_“Why not? Do you not love me enough?”_

_“I couldn’t live in a world without you, Michael.”_

Life was more colourful after a litre of vodka, Michael had learnt. Michael had learnt a lot of things that he never thought he would recently. He’d have liked to call that the silver lining in the grey cloud that had completely ruined his life, but the silver seemed too dull to shine through the dark.

 

Michael had learnt that the derelict car park five minutes from Ashton’s apartment was the best place to strategically vomit en route to his next stop. Michael had learnt that skittles were the best things to take the taste of vodka off his tongue – minus the red ones, of course. They were separated and stored in his back pocket. Michael had consequently learnt that skittles can dye jeans, and so a blotch of red had become a permanent fixture in his outfit, not that he particularly cared.

 

Michael had learnt that Calum Hood slept in even later than himself, and that he kept his spare key behind a splintered piece of wood at the top of his door. Michael had learnt that Calum only ever slept with dark skinned girls with darker hair, and they happened to leave his apartment at around 4:15pm. That day, she had a double nose piercing and knuckle tattoos and a cute Philly accent and Michael questioned what ridiculous reason Calum would give for not wanting her to stay this time.

 

“Her eyes were too much like Mali’s. Imagine having to look into your sister’s eyes every time you came, fuckin’ creepy man.”

 

Michael couldn’t imagine, both because he was an only child and because the only eyes he’d ever looked into in a situation like that had been so shockingly and beautifully blue that it would be sacrilegious to compare them to anyone else on this earth. Calum seemed to realise this as he said it, and so before the conversation could continue, a cold bottle of Jack Daniel’s was being thrust into Michael’s hands. Calum knew that Michael had already tried to drown his sorrows in a litre of vodka, but he also happened to know that it never worked, and the warmth that whiskey left in his chest was the only warmth he felt anymore.

 

“How are you doing?”

 

It was the same question, said in a slightly different tone every day. Almost like Calum had a different reason to ask, when both boys knew there was only ever one reason.

 

“Fine.”

 

It was the same answer, said in a slightly different tone every day. Almost like Michael really thought Calum would believe him today, when both boys knew he hadn’t been fine for a very long time.

 

And then Calum would laugh - the familiar eyes-crinkling-but-no-happiness-really-there kind of laugh that Michael saw all too much of these days – and they would both drink until their bottles were empty or Michael started to cry, a not irregular occurrence that only led to a sticky sort of cuddle and another bottle of JD.

 

But it was different, that day. Michael could feel it in the way Calum paused just a second longer after he told him he was fine, in the way he was only sipping his Jack when it would usually cascade down his throat in breathtaking gulps. Michael could feel that something was different because Calum was looking at him with a genuine concern that hadn’t been around for six months.

 

And Michael didn’t like that look. He didn’t like it at all.

 

That look sent Michael hurtling into the past – into broken nights spent sobbing on Calum’s floor, into hungover mornings with the realisation of loneliness surging through Michael’s blood and into walls and fragile vases, into his first nights alone after the promise of a perfect future. With Calum staring into his eyes like that, Michael felt like he felt six months ago.

 

“It’s been six months.”

 

It was almost disgusting, really, how well Calum had learnt to read Michael. See, Michael wasn’t the only one who had been on a journey of knowledge in the six months since his world ended. Calum had learnt that Michael could handle just over two litres of hard spirits before he passed out, after one traumatic night with three bottles of Absolut and three consequent days in hospital. Calum had learnt that the only way to talk to Michael was to catch him in his 4pm buzz, when the alcohol was just hitting him but not paralyzing him. Most importantly, Calum had learnt that sleeping with a different girl every night was an unsatisfying yet bearable way of coping with losing your best friend. Because Michael was content with being in his permanent lost, but Calum was still trying desperately to find him.

 

“It’s been six months, Michael.”

 

Michael heard Calum the first time, but the repetition was their way of indicating that it wasn’t just a throwaway comment, that it actually meant something. And Michael realised that this was why that day was different.

 

“I know.”

 

“How do you feel about that?”

 

“Since when are you my fucking therapist?”

 

“Since you passed out on my floor every night for two weeks, arsehole.”

 

“Don’t call me that.”

 

The tension in the room was electric, a buzz they both felt but couldn’t place. Michael was sullen and trying desperately not to remember, Calum more alive than he had felt in months and trying desperately not to forget.

 

“Don’t you understand Michael? It’s been six months.”

 

“So fucking what? Six months without him. Fucking awesome.”

 

And Calum’s face fell. Michael had seen it, had watched him with eyes as wide as two litres of spirits would let them be, and Michael couldn’t understand.

 

“He didn’t tell you.”

 

The words were too familiar, too soon for Michael to hear. They were words he’d heard before, same quietly nervous voice, same restless best friend. They were words that announced the first crack in what would become the abyss that opened up and consumed his happiness, his world, his masterpiece. They were words that told Michael what he should’ve already known, but couldn’t figure out through vague news headlines and cold touches from which warmth usually radiated. They were words that were a precursor to the second worst event in Michael’s life so far – Ben.

 

_“Why didn’t you tell me?”_

_“I thought you knew.”_

_“I thought you were mad at me, I thought you were breaking up with me. I was so selfish.”_

_“You didn’t know.”_

_“You didn’t tell me.”_

_“I didn’t know how.”_

_“I-I… I love you. I’m here for you.”_

_“I love you, Michael. You’re all I have now.”_

Calum caught the words right as they tumbled from his lips. He hadn’t meant to recreate that somber night from last year, yet somehow the atmosphere was the same. Michael was puzzling through the conversation, the despair that the memories brought etched onto his jaded features.

 

“Michael.”

 

Glossy eyes returned to Calum’s gaze, and the younger boy sighed for the shell of his best friend that sat before him. He sighed for their lost love, and his lost heart. He sighed because he knew what he was about to say would break him.

 

“Michael, he told me he was coming back. After six months.”

 

* * *

 

 

The shards of broken glass that lined the entryway to the park had never been anything more than an irritant to Michael as he stumbled across the gravel. But then, as drunken disbelief began to paralyse his every nerve, each tiny glittering piece of glass taunted him. They reflected what he didn’t want to – no, couldn’t _bear_ to see; his own two eyes, raw and wide, struggling to restrain the tears that threatened in a pool beneath his eyelids.

 

He’d run before he could hear anything more than he could take. The hinges of Calum’s door, usually so stiff and squealing, flew back with unadulterated power as Michael stormed away, one name on his lips and the whispered repetition of disbelief. The distant call of his name in a voice that could only be Calum’s lingered in his ears, but there was no way he could turn back. He couldn’t change his plan. He couldn’t let things be different. Change wasn’t good.

 

So he did what he always did. He stumbled and ached and fell and vomited and limped his way to the park. It was a two-minute walk that became an hour long trek with the electricity of two litres of alcohol charging his blood, making every step a leap of faith into a black hole of no hope, and when he finally made it to his destination, he stuttered and stammered and resigned to sitting beside a wall.

 

In the distance, he could see the bench. It was his usual place of rest, another habit too set to break regardless of the dull ache that settled in his chest every time he fulfilled it. From his position by the wall, he could see the bench and the pond that sat beside it and the tree that lost its leaves to the murky depths every year. The tree that had hundreds of initials carved in shitty handwriting on its bark, a boasting of loves most long forgotten but made eternal with a sharp piece of rock and a need to destroy nature. Michael knew his initials were there, in the bottom right hand corner circled with a love heart and a smiley face that looked like the work of a five year old. All the times he would laugh and joke and tease about that god damn smiley face, yet all he wanted then and there was that stupid grin back to replace the tombstone of sadness that overwhelmed his memories of the park.

 

_“I can’t ignore it anymore, Mikey.”_

_“You’re not ignoring it, babe, we’re just dealing with it.”_

_“But we haven’t talked about it.”_

_“Do we need to? Look, you know I love you and you love me and we’re in our favourite place, and really what else matters?”_

_“I’m broken, Michael.”_

_“Don’t you dare say that. You’re not broken, you’re hurt.”_

_“I’m broken and I can’t ignore it anymore.”_

_“I love you.”_

_“That doesn’t fix me.”_

_“Darling you don’t need fixing. I’ve got you.”_

It was cold – too cold for a September afternoon, anyway – and a constellation of frost formed beneath Michael’s fingertips as he sat. He was numb to it though, couldn’t not be when every inch of his skin was scorching with a mix of lingering whiskey and the anticipation of great change. His hazy mind begged him desperately to leave, to follow routine and stumble into the bar downtown at 5pm, only to leave six hours later absolutely wasted and arm in arm with a stranger. But the dull ache in his chest that was a permanent fixture in the park now crackled with flames of reignited pain, licking at Michael’s every nerve and emotion, and his heart was too fast yet pulse too despairingly slow to think about moving. So, he didn’t.

 

He sat, for how many hours even Michael had no clue, and watched the bench as the sun disappeared behind it and the moon came as a replacement to illuminate the pathetic scene. There was a war in his head; the past fighting the present, the need to remember the happiness battling the creeping sadness that filtered in beside it. His body became a rock, curled up by the wall heavy and immobile in his torturous indecision, and it was only when the moon began to slip from his vision that Michael felt the weight of fatigue hit him. Michael was tired, and so Michael chose to do the least Michael thing that he could – he listened to his body, rose to his feet and began to wander home. Past the bar, past the liquor store, past Calum’s – after several rocks were lazily thrown at his window, of course – past Ashton’s, across the beck, past Joe’s Garage, past the piercing place, round two lefts, home.

 

The surprise in Mr Gustave’s eyes when Michael fell into the building two hours before expected, and noticeably alone, went unnoticed. And, frankly, even if Michael had seen the wide eyes and shaking hands as his keys slid onto the desk, he wouldn’t have cared. He didn’t care about anything anymore.

He didn’t care that every step was landing on a black tile.

He didn’t care that his hand slid along the purple bannister on the third floor.

He didn’t care that the keys he got from his pocket were the wrong ones, or that the keyring attached was full of smiles and memories of before six months ago. (He did care about that, very much so, but he’d done enough crying over old pictures).

 

When Michael’s apartment door swung open, creaking as always, Michael didn’t quite know what to do. He had grown accustomed to the slam of the door, the groans of whomever he’d decided to drag home that night as their backs hit the brick wall, the breathless gasps as he tore at their lips in a heat of passionless lust. Michael hadn’t entered his apartment alone in 161 days – not that he was counting – and the change hit him like a ton of bricks.

 

He shuffled aimlessly round the room, hand instinctively reaching for the lamp as he passed, too used to having to protect it from a flailing limb or swinging bag from a hazy stranger. He sat, lightly and carefully, on the sofa – miles away from the normal attack of two bodies hitting the cushions as one cluster – and stared at the plate of cold banana pancakes that remained on the table. It was pathetic, almost laughable, Michael thought, how he continued to make _him_ some – y’know, just in case he stopped in randomly for breakfast at 2pm, like old times. Michael couldn’t bring himself to eat them, or drink the extra saccharine-saturated coffee, so he just stared, useless and broken, as they seemed to stare back. His gaze faltered to the cracked porcelain bowl beside the table, brimming with a sea of red, which Michael had uncharacteristically yet to add to. He stood, reaching into his back left pocket – the back right reserved for the condom that never ended up leaving its denim confines – and dropping eleven red skittles into the bowl.

“Fucking pathetic.”

He audibly laughed, voice scratchy and ruined by vomit and vodka, as he studied the collection of desperation – six months worth of red skittles, six months of _his_ favourite tradition, six months of simple displays of love that weren’t wanted or needed anymore. It was the perfect metaphor, the perfect analogy – the boy who was so damn broken he couldn’t remember why he was that way in the first place, who had left to shatter him so completely. It made Michael sick – physically.

 

He was a mess; a six-foot ragdoll curled over the toilet in a flurry of gags and sobs that hadn’t been so violent since that one dreadful night of bad decisions and too many keys of coke. The alcohol he had become so resilient to fought back, a brutal reminder of how long this had gone on, and tears streamed down shaking pale cheeks as pain and memories were forced up through his throat. It was painful, it was disgusting, it was raw – it was how Michael had been all along.

 

That night, after two long hours spent regretting his every decision, Michael dreamt. He dreamt for the first time in six months – and for the first time ever after two litres of alcohol – of _that_ night.

 

It wasn’t exactly the same; the storm that raged outside the window was really a quiet, peaceful night and the blood that poured from Michael’s eyes were simple tears in reality. But it felt too real.

 

“Where are you going?” His voice was familiarly scratchy, from pain not booze, and the words seemed to stutter in his throat.

 

Beautiful blue eyes looked into his lifeless green ones. The sadness that overwhelmed them was unrivalled, glossy with grief and determined regret.

 

“I’m leaving, Michael.”

 

The pain was just as bad the second time. A tear straight through his heart, a crack in every artery and a puncture in his lung. _His_ voice was faltering, wavering under the threat of tears but strong in the knowledge that it was the right decision for himself.

 

“N-no, no…”

  
“Michael, I’m broken. I told you, I’m broken and I need to fix myse-“

 

“ _NO YOU’RE NOT.”_

Grazed knees his the cold floor, aching like jagged concrete instead of the smooth wood of reality. Michael reached forward, his shaking fingertips brushing the cheeks that he had held so close for so long as if they were his life source, his oxygen, his blood.

 

“I love you, Michael. I love you so much, I can’t stand it. But I’m broken, and you’re broken too, and we can’t ignore that anymore. I’m sorry. I love you.”

 

A warm hand covered his fingertips – just briefly, just enough – before his life and his happiness was walking out the door. The only reason Michael had for waking up for so long, the muse behind his every action, the jigsaw piece that fit so well into Michael’s higgledy-piggledy life that nobody else seemed to understand, the sunshine that broke into his stormcloud and made everything better. Luke Hemmings was walking out the door.

 

“ _Luke, please.”_ It was broken, desperate. He didn’t recognise his own voice beneath the weight of the tears that clogged his throat. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see.

 

Luke stopped.

 

“I love you, Michael.”

 

“Y-you said… you couldn’t l-live without me.”

 

“I love you, Michael. I’m sorry.”

 

The door slammed. Michael’s head met cold ground in a defeated slump to the floor. Sobs ripped through his throat as if his very heart was trying to fight its way out of its chest. And really, his heart was already gone. His heart was walking out of the apartment building, and maybe if Michael had the fucking guts he could go and get his heart, but he knew Luke was right and Michael was broken and nothing could fix him now. And so Michael cried, and Michael drank and Michael clung to the words that Luke had spoken before taking his light and crushing his happiness.

 

* * *

 

There was a certain comfort in the cold of waking up alone, Michael had learnt. But when there was no dip in the bed, no warmth from a just-gone-body, no drunken memories of a meaningless orgasm – the comfort felt altogether less comforting. When the familiar sense of safety of an empty bedside table was replaced by a distinct emptiness in his chest as he stared at the picture that had appeared there – one beautiful broken blonde boy with cerulean eyes and a room-lighting smile holding one broken lost boy with a heart full of love and a gaze stuck on the boy beside him – waking up alone didn’t feel like home.

 

Nothing felt like home when _he_ wasn’t there.

**Author's Note:**

> well, i hope you liked it! please leave kudos and comment if you do because I'm so new and this is scary. I love this story and idea so much that I'm thinking of turning it into a three part series, with the second part being Luke's p.o.v of the six months and the third part being after (maybe Luke returning? maybe something else?). Let me know if you think that'd be cool i guess.


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